Chris Lattner writes :

Until there is more real documentation, this is a basic idea of Blocks: it is closures for C. It lets you pass around units of computation that can be executed later. For example […]

FYI, I ended up taking the position at Google. I started two weeks ago, and it’s been quite exciting, despite (or because of) the “drinking from a fire-hose” aspect of learning my way around the big G.

I’m on the Google Sites team. I’ve been interested in wikis for years, and now I get to actually work on one. (Although Sites, née JotSpot, is not a typical wiki.)

I could write a lot about my experience of … MORE

‘Prince McLean’, writing for AppleInsider:

Data transaction security in MobileMe’s web apps is based upon authenticated handling of JSON data exchanges between the self contained JavaScript client apps and Apple’s cloud, rather than the SSL web page encryption used by HTTPS. […] If Apple applied SSL encryption in the browser, it would only slow down every data exchange without really improving security, and instead only provide pundits with a false sense of security that distracts from real security threats.

It’s pretty clear to me from this description that (a) McLean doesn’t know much about data security or HTTP, and (b) the system he’s describing would be patently insecure. And unfortunately, the actual system is just as insecure as I was afraid it was.… MORE

I’m fooling around with Soup, a newish micro-blogging service I just discovered. I’ve never signed up for tumblr or its other clones, but I’m kind of smitten with Soup, so I set up my own:

beautiful snej soup, yum

I’ve got it aggregating stuff from my del.icio.us, flickr and last.fm accounts, as well as this blog. And I’m directly posting some things I’ve run across today, via its very nice bookmarklet.

Part of the reason I got sucked in is that Soup has the single best new-user experience I’ve ever seen on the web.… MORE

I hung out with Ricci this afternoon. I brought along my Decktet, and we tried some of the games, then decided to make up one of our own. I suggested adapting Crazy Eights to this weird double-suited deck; a direct adaptation didn’t do too well on its own (it was too easy to get rid of cards), but Ricci had an idea that worked brilliantly, of incurring penalties for repeating suits.

Then I came home and wrote down the rules … Give it a try! (Don’t believe a word of the historical background, though! I just made it up, and stole the great nonsense word “quäsenbö” from an old Roz Chast cartoon.)… MORE

My Decktet is a thing of beauty. I even printed & assembled the box (an activity that took me back to my happy childhood days of making paper polyhedra models.)

The only problem is that the cards still have a faint sickly-sweet stink of toluene and acetone (from the plastic coating) even after I left them spread out on the floor for a few days. It’s quite unpleasant, not like the nice smell of new books, cars or boardgames.

Is this the papercraft equivalent of “Code Smell”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_smell?… MORE

Sometimes it’s nice to make physical objects. It’s usually messier and more time-consuming than doing it on the computer, but in the end you have something you can actually touch.

… MORE

I need a few brave people to test a pre-beta app for me. No, this is not Cloudy; it’s another app I’ve been working on in parallel. It’s called Your Move, and it’s the expanded version of my GeekGameBoard sample code. It lets you play board games against a human opponent; either at the same machine, over a local network, or by sending moves via email or iChat.… MORE

(This is more or less to the tune of Rock’n’Roll High School, or any other Ramones song for that matter. You have to imagine Joey Ramone singing it. Johnny, you just switch between C and F every couple of lines, got it?)

Well back in March I got my feelins hurt
When Apple wouldn’t gimme no developer cert
The SDK they gave me had a “simulator”—Fooled around with it, then said “see you lator!”

(iPhone, iPhone, iPhone developer)… MORE